Review Summary: Extravagant and heavy, "Morbid Brains" is a strong EP...yet it's still just an EP.
Ahh, Finland; how you have blessed the world with such great metal. Whether it be the bigger-named bands such as
Children of Bodom or
Kalmah, or the smaller yet equally as great acts like
Deathchain or
Stone, Finland has bestowed much upon the metal scene. So when I stumbled across
De Lirium’s Order and noticed that they were formed in Finland, I knew I was in for a good listen.
Proclaiming their sound to be like “a chainsaw singing in the night”,
De Lirium’s Order is an intense mix of melodic death metal and thrash. The mixture, however, didn’t seem to surprise me seeing as how one of the former members (and the vocalist on this EP) was Corpse, whose guitar prowess is featured in the death/thrash masters
Deathchain. Think
At the Gates meets
Destruction, and that’s what
De Lirium’s Order is.
Four songs, 16:23 minutes; that’s what you get with “Morbid Brains”. The first song, however, will leave a dull impression about this EP. “Abomination”, while it starts off with a thick chugging head-banging riff courtesy of Dr. Lirium and S.M. NekroC, it seems to lose it’s intensity near the end. You do, however, get a good taste of Corpse’s excellent death metal growls and E.R. Insane’s strong double-bass effort. The next song though immediately picks up the slack, as it’s hands down the best on the album. “Through the Eyes of a Murderer” is an intense, psychotic-tale, wonderfully told by fantastic lead work (not to mention complete with exquisite melodic-shredding solos), a frantic double-bass, and dark growls. Corpse’s vocals really shine on this track, mainly due to the parts where he’s able to push his voice as low it can go to add to the barbaric tone. The “intro” is probably one of the creepiest things I’ve ever heard, as it’s an insane man talking about how he ate a man’s liver who tried to help him…that’s pretty f*cked up.
The other two songs are just as amazing. Coming in off a small sound build-up, “The Sounds of Mutilation” resurrects the same chugging intensity of “Abomination”, but this time with a fresher sound that seems to latch itself onto your mind. This is mainly due to Corpse’s crazed lyrics and vocals, as he screams out lines like “
The needles growing out of your heart, they designate towards the fire!” Another jaw-dropping melodic solo? You bet. The closer, “Masterpiece of a Morbid Mind” comes in with such a hauntingly calm riff that you thought you’d be listening to something else, only to smacked in the face with a full-blown thrash riff and piercing growls. “Masterpiece…” is easily the thrashiest song on the album, mainly due to the frantic chorus, but the strong melodic leads/solo/sections are enough to put even the most avid thrash haters at bay.
To be quite honest, there are only three things that really bring this album down, and those are the amount of tracks, the cheesy album title, and the song “Abomination”. Not only does “Abomination” not match the other three tracks in quality, but it also features the most frustrating ending I’ve ever heard; it just stops. The guys are in mid-riff, and it literally cuts out…and that’s that. No fade out or anything, it really sounds like they realized the song was getting dull when they listened to it in the studio and just ended it.
I stand firmly impressed by these Finnish metalers. Not only did they add a bit more spice to the death/thrash genre by adding in a strong melodic sense to their work, but they did so in that they really feel like something genuinely unique and original. All of these songs were later lifted onto their full-length album, “Victim No.52” (save for
“The Sounds of Mutilation”), and this EP/demo can longer be found to buy. You can, however, download it in full off of their website (www.deliriumsorder.net), which I strongly advise any metal-head to do.
*My grade is based into two parts: the actual music rating, and the overall CD rating. The music is phenomenal, but it’s an EP, and only contains four songs (and one of them isn’t that great), so it really dampers the score a bit.
Overall (music) grade – 4/5
Overall – 3/5
Recommended Tracks:
Any track but “Abomination”.
